THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 635 



feel sorely tempted to relieve his distress by invoking the aid of the 

 drug-gods. For believers in the remedial resources of Nature, pleurisy 

 is, indeed, a crucial test of faith, and Dr. Isaac Jennings's observations 

 on his experience during an acute attack of the disease deserve to 

 be framed in every hygienic sanitarium. 



"For twelve hours," says he, "breathing was at best laborious 

 and painful, confining me to nearly an erect position in bed ; but the 

 distress occasioned by efforts at coughing was indescribable. The 

 confidence of my wife in the ' let-alone ' treatment, which had been 

 strengthening for years, and had carried her unflinchingly through a 

 number of serious indispositions, on this occasion faltered ; and she 

 begged me to let her send for a physician to bleed me or do something 

 to give at least temporary relief ; * for,' said she, * you can not live 

 so.' In my own mind there was not the least vestige of misgiving re- 

 specting the course pursued. 



" In view of the constitutional defect in the pulmonary department 

 of my system, and the nature and severity of the symptoms, it ap- 

 peared to me very doubtful whether the powers of life would hold 

 out and be able to accomplish what they had undertaken and put me 

 again upon my feet. But I felt perfectly satisfied that whatever 

 could be done to good purpose would be done, by ' due course of law.' 

 My mind, therefore, was perfectly at ease in trusting Nature's work 

 in Nature's hands. There was no danger in the symptoms, let them 

 run as high as they would. They constituted no part of the real dif- 

 ficulty, but grew out of it. The general movement which made them 

 necessary was aiming directly at the removal of that difficulty. In- 

 stead, therefore, of being troubled with the idea that I could not live 

 with such symptoms, my conviction was very strong that I could live 

 better with them than without them. 



" In the morning, ten or twelve hours from the beginning of the 

 cold chill, there was some mitigation of suffering, which continued 

 till afternoon, when there was a slight exacerbation of symptoms ; 

 but the heaviest part of the work was accomplished within the first 

 twenty-four hours. From that time there was a gradual declension of 

 painful symptoms, till the fifth day, when debility and expectoration 

 constituted the bulk of the disease. 



" Full bleeding at the commencement of the disease, followed by 

 the other * break-up ' means usually employed in such affections, would 

 have given me immediate relief, and, by continuing to ply active means 

 as the work was urged on (for there would have been no stopping of 

 it, short of stopping the action of the heart), the strongest, most dis- 

 tressing, and critical part of the disease might have been pushed for- 

 ward to the fifth day ; and I might even then possibly have recovered. 

 But, granting that my life would have been spared, I suffered much 

 less on the whole under the ' let alone ' treatment than I should have 

 done under a perturbating one, besides having the curative process con- 



